


Seeing Red

by danveresque



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen, Kink Meme, M/M, Racist Punching, The Old Guard Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27728540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danveresque/pseuds/danveresque
Summary: Nicky can feel for Joe, but he can't feel what Joe feels.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 4
Kudos: 145





	Seeing Red

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [prompt](https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1468.html?thread=338108#cmt338108): _Joe can handle himself. He's competent and smart, and frankly quite eloquent in less than ideal situations, but some days, the vitriol gets to him, and he's weighing his options with handling a small minded bastard. It's different when it's himandNicky. It's different when he's defending family. When he's defending himself, there's sometimes that question of "Is it fucking worth it?" Then Nicky punches the guy and ends that conversation._
> 
> Heads up, readers, leading up to the punching a character is racist/Islamaphobic towards Joe. Please do not read if you think it might be upsetting. For my part, I hope I've written this with as much sensitivity as personal insight.

Andy noticed the arrival of her team before the door even opened, disgruntled noises reaching her ears as she looked up from her book.  
  
“It was my fault,” Nile said as she walked in, looking miserably guilty.  
  
“It was not,” Nicky said fiercely, looking livid. Andy got up, took in the sight of Nile, Nicky and Joe. They’d been in some kind of trouble, that was for sure. Nicky’s t-shirt had blood, the evidence of where it came from washed away. “It was not your fault. It was the fault of that...that _pig_ in the bar.”  
  
“What the hell’s this?” Andy asked calmly. “Someone want to explain?”  
  
Nicky looked away, shaking his head, before quietly stalking off towards the bedrooms.  
  
“Joe?” Andy asked.  
  
Joe sighed, wearily heading towards the kitchen. “Not now, Boss.”  
  
That left Nile who was watching Joe with quiet concern. “Nile.”  
  
Nile sighed, looking at Andy. “It was stupid. It was my fault.”  
  
Joe turned and pointed at her, annoyed. “It was _not_ your fault. _Never_ your fault. You wanted to go to a bar, have a drink, feel normal. That’s not a crime.”  
  
“Is this something I need to worry about?” Andy asked, thinking about cops and guns, labs and dissection.  
  
Nile shook her head. “No. It’s fine. We were having a drink. This asshole started saying things. About Joe. We were just going to leave, he was just being a dick. But then he just went too far. Nicky lost it. Went for him. Then his friends decided to help him out.”  
  
Andy looked at Joe, the way his jaw was so clenched so tight she could feel the pain of it about to snap. “Hope they got what was coming.”  
  
Joe sagged, rubbing his hands across his face, mumbling. “I need some tea.”  
  
Nile looked at Andy in quiet communication: _I got this._

Andy nodded and went to find Nicky. He hadn’t gotten far. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at his hands with a morose expression. Andy sat down next to him. He didn’t look at her, continuing to stare at nothing.  
  
“What happened?” Andy asked. Nicky shook his head slowly. “Did you manage to stay under the radar?”

That made him look up, annoyance clear in his gaze. It was better than nothing.  
  
“If the police get involved-”  
  
“I don’t care, Andy,” Nicky said calmly. “I don’t care about the police.”  
  
“I know you’re upset,”Andy said.  
  
“But I shouldn’t be?” Nicky said. He scowled at her. “This man, he told Joe to go back where he came from. Called him names. Demeaned his religion. He did this to the man I would give my life for.”  
  
“He was an asshole,” Andy said. “His opinion’s not worth shit.”  
  
“The heart doesn’t know logic,” Nicky said quietly, looking away from her. He sighed heavily, hunched over and looking burdened. “I tell myself we have done good. That what we do changes the world for the better. But then I look around and see all this hate. These people...they don’t deserve our help.”  
  
Andy smiled, offering a nod of agreement.  
  
“What’s so funny?”  
  
“You,” she said. “You’d let the world burn for him, wouldn’t you?”  
  
Nicky shrugged, telling her, “This world...is not good enough for him.”  
  
"What some asshole has to say about him isn’t worth shit, Nicky," Andy said,  
  
Nicky let his head drop into his hands. “It’s not just some asshole in a bar. It’s people on the street. Men and women. Children. They’ve all been taught to hate. They have been taught for years. For centuries.”  
  
“Nicky-”  
  
He looked up, pointing to himself. “I have a hand in this. I left for the holy land, for this. I have a hand in what started it all. They use this word, on the television, in the papers, crusades. I have a hand in this.”

Andy nodded, swallowing down her own shame. “We all have things in our past we’re not proud of. But we change. We atone. Throwing yourself a pity party doesn’t help anyone. Doesn’t help Joe.”  
  
Nicky went back to the safety of hiding his face in his hands, offering a muffled, “I don’t remember inviting you to my party.”  
  
Andy sighed, telling him, “This party sucks.”  
  
Nicky let out a small laugh. It was something.

O

“Why aren’t you in there kissing and making up?” Nile asked, watching Joe sitting on the other side of the small round dining table.  
  
He was sitting there with legs stretched out, arms crossed over his stomach and tea forgotten next to him. He blinked at her and said, “Because there’s nothing to make up for. He just needs some space. That guy got under his skin.”  
  
“For good reason,” Nile said. “Aren’t you mad?”  
  
“Of course,” Joe said with a shrug. “The guy was a piece of shit. Not worth the time or the effort. Sometimes, the best thing to do is just walk away.”  
  
Nile considered his words. “It’s not easy walking away.”  
  
“No,” Joe said. “It wears you down. You want to scream, what is it about me, the colour of my skin, the god in my heart, that makes you hate? What are you so afraid of?”  
  
Nile frowned. “You think it’s about fear?”  
  
“All hate is about fear,” Joe said. “Otherwise, what is there to hate about someone who is just different? I don’t hate you. You don’t hate me. So why do they hate us? What is it about your skin, my religion, that makes someone say and do terrible things?”  
  
Nile swallowed, feeling a knot-like lump in her throat. The man in the bar had looked at her. She was next on his list, after he’d finished his shit with Joe.  
  
_Fuckin Islamist,_ he had said. _You heard me, Osama. You don’t get to be here. Okay? We don’t want you, so go back to...to fuckin Iraq or whatever, man._  
  
Joe had shook his head, grinned, amused by the incoherent threat. Nicky was already moving, a deadly look in his eyes. Joe stopped him, with quiet words in Italian.  
  
_Hey! This is America! We talk English here. Talk in English! Or go back home!_  
  
Joe’s expression seemed to shift then, shutting down, shields going up. He was thinking about it, Nile could tell, thinking about smashing the teeth right out of that guy’s big mouth.  
  
_Home?_ Nicky virtually spat in the man’s face, his eyes flicking to the red baseball cap. _Who are you to speak of home? You stand on stolen land, built upon by stolen people. Apologise._  
  
_Nicolo_ , Joe had said, with another flurry of words only for him and Nicky to understand. Nicky shrugged Joe’s hand off his elbow, shaking his head. _I want this sack of shit to apologise._  
  
That hadn’t happened. The man had snorted and his eyes had turned on Nile who was standing up, fists curling, wanting to snap that bastard’s arm in two. The man opened his mouth and Nicky smashed his fist into it hard. He never saw it coming.  
  
They hadn’t compromised themselves and there was the added bonus of taking out racist trash. Nile had thought the evening turned out okay. Only Nicky and Joe bickered the entire way home, their bickering turning to loud angry overlapping arguing.  
  
“What were you arguing about?” Nile asked. “In the car?”  
  
Joe sighed, the sound turning into a quiet grown as he craned his neck back. “I told him he shouldn’t have started a fight, it was reckless. I didn’t ask for his protection. He said he wouldn’t have to start something if I had just punched that guy out. I...I told him...it’s nothing to do with him, he doesn’t understand. He can’t ever understand.”  
  
That explained the sudden silence between them, Nicky looking like he’d been smacked in the face. It had been harsh, but it was true wasn’t it? Nicky could feel for Joe, but he could feel what Joe felt.  
  
“He loves you,” Nile said with a shrug. “He doesn’t have to get it to want to have your back.”  
  
Joe sagged where he sat. “I know. But sometimes...I just want to walk away. It’s ignorant. Ugly. It’s not my problem, you know, existing as me is _not_ my problem. If it’s someone else’s problem, they can go fuck themselves. I just want to walk away...sometimes.”  
  
“I know,” Nile said. “But _sometimes_ , you can’t walk away. Sometimes you have to stay and you have to punch a guy in the face, and then punch his friends in the face, because they need to _learn_.”  
  
Joe laughed, nodding and grinning at her. After a moment his gaze turned inwards. He frowned, telling her, “There was a time I thought if I lived to be a thousand, the world would be like paradise by then. This is not the world you should be living in, Nile. There should have been something better.”  
  
Nile smiled at Joe. “There’s still some time before you hit one thousand. Who knows what’s around the corner. You know, when a garbage fire is put out, it’s usually happens pretty fast.”  
  
Joe grinned at that, nodding. “True true.”  
  
Nile grinned back. Nodding in the direction of the bedrooms, she said, “So, he do a lot of that? Protecting your honour. I couldn’t understand what you were saying, but that argument sounded around nine hundred years old.”  
  
Joe scrunched up his face. “More like five hundred years old. There was an incident. We don’t talk about it.”  
  
“Sounds like something I _really_ need you to tell me, especially if we’re going to gel like a team. Families talk, you know?” Nile said.  
  
“Nice try, kid,” Joe said. “You’re not getting anything.”  
  
“What’s this?” Nicky asked, walking out looking a little less morose. Andy followed before ignoring them all and heading to open the fridge and peer inside.  
  
“She wants to know about when you started defending my honour,” Joe said, looking back at Nicky.  
  
Nicky’s mouth tilted up in a smile as he floated to stand behind Joe, putting his hands on Joe’s shoulder’s. Joe immediately took one hand, giving the palm a quick fleeting kiss. Nicky moved his other hand into Joe’s hair, fingers lightly moving through his curls. It seemed both intimate and mundane at the same time. Nile realised the sight of it provided strange calm.  
  
“When the world started to behave more and more dishonourably,” Nicky told her, before pulling away from Joe to take a seat next to him.  
  
Andy had finished with the fridge, taking out a small Tupperware box of pasta, retrieving a fork and falling into a chair next to Nile. There was an empty chair next to her and her eyes seemed to settle on it for just a little too long, before she used her foot to drag it close and then use it to rest both her feet.  
  
“For what it’s worth,” Andy said, stabbing her fork into the pasta, “I’m on board punching assholes. Just make sure you don’t get caught.”  
  
“That’s good advice,” Nile said with a nod. Andy looked at her before smiling and giving Nile’s knee a little shove. Nile laughed. “What? I’m serious. That is good leadership. Punch assholes, don’t get caught.”  
  
Joe and Nicky were looking at her and Andy, wearing matching smiles of amusement. Nicky said, “I agree. There are so many to choose from.”  
  
“Hey remember when you punched that Nazi?” Joe said, pointing at Andy.  
  
Nile looked at Andy. “Nazi punching? Awesome. What happened?”  
  
Andy pulled a face. “I was trying to give someone the slip and walked into some parade. Saw a guy shouting his mouth off. Punched him to the ground.”  
  
“Germany?” Nile said.  
  
“Washington. Three years ago,”Andy said around a forkful of pasta.  
  
Nile nodded. “Wow. So that’s depressing.”  
  
“That’s the world,” Andy said.  
  
“But we do what we can to change it,” Nicky said with a nod. He looked at Joe. “Everything can change. You just have to meet the right people.”  
  
Nile looked across at Andy, receiving a soft smile and something bright like hope glimmering in eyes that had seen centuries of terror. Nile nodded too, having seen how the right people at the right time could change things for the better.  
  
Smiling at Andy, she said, “It’s cool you punched a Nazi.”

O

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. They ate, drank and laughed. Joe shared the most amusing of their anecdotes and Nile beamed all the way through them. She was so young, so hopeful, despite the world she was so hopeful. Andy felt it give her life, that hope. She stored it in that place where she missed Booker, Booker who would have thrown the first punch tonight had he been there.  
  
Nile went off to sleep, wanting to be up early. Andy, never a good sleeper, sat at the kitchen table, flipping the pages of a too often read book. Nicky and Joe lounged on the sofa and at some point Joe had moved to lie down with his head in Nicky's lap. He looked serene, his eyes closed, Nicky moving his fingers in Joe's hair. Nicky bent down and murmured something, kissing Joe's cheek, protecting him still from a hateful world.


End file.
